Connecting Link: What are the
Earth Chronicles about?
Zecharia Sitchin: The first book,
The Twelfth Planet, refers to the
probability that there is one more planet in our solar system. That
there are twelve members, counting sun, moon and ten planets, not
the nine we know of. That people from that planet came to earth
almost half a million years ago and did many of the things about
which we read in the Bible, in the book of Genesis.
But that was not my starting point at all. My starting point was,
going back to my childhood and schooldays, the puzzle of who were
the Nefilim, that are mentioned in Genesis, Chapter six, as the sons
of the gods who married the daughters of Man in the days before the
great flood, the Deluge. The word Nefilim is commonly, or used to
be, translated "giants." And I am sure that you and your readers are
familiar with quotes and Sunday preachings, etc., that those were
the days when there were giants upon the earth.
I questioned this
interpretation as a child at school, and I was reprimanded for it
because the teacher said "you don't question the Bible." But I did
not question the Bible, I questioned an interpretation that seemed
inaccurate, because the word, Nefilim, the name by which those
extraordinary beings, "the sons of the gods" were known, means
literally, "Those who have come down to earth from the heavens."
CL: From the Hebrew word Nafal, which means "fall"?
ZS: Right. Fall, come down, descend. So, what did it mean? This led
me to biblical studies and then to mythology and archeology and all
the other subjects, including the study of ancient languages, which
became my education and avocation. So, my research and my decision
to write about it started with a question, Who were the Nefilim?
All the ancient scriptures, the Bible, the Greek myths, the Egyptian
myth and texts, the pyramid texts, everything, led to the Sumerians,
whose civilization was the first known one six thousand years ago. I
focused on Sumer, the source of these legends and myths and texts
and information. I learned to read the cuneiform Sumerian texts and
came upon their persistent and repeated statements that those
beings, whom the Sumerians called
Anunnaki, came to earth from a
planet called
Nibiru. The planet was designated by the sign of the
cross and Nibiru meant, "planet of crossing."
The question thus shifted in my research from who were the Nefilim
and the Anunnaki, to, what planet is Nibiru? Forced to become
proficient in astronomy, I had to learn enough about it to deal with
the subject. I found out that the scholars were divided. Some said
it (Nibiru) was Mars, which of course was described and known to the
ancient people, and others said, no, it was Jupiter. Those who said
it was Jupiter and not Mars, had very convincing arguments why it
could not be Mars. And those who said it was Mars and not Jupiter
had very convincing arguments also.
Being able to go directly to those ancient sources, clay tablets and
cuneiforn scripts, it seemed to me that neither was right, because
the description of Nibiru and its position when it nears the Sun
indicated that it could not be Mars, and it could not be Jupiter.
And then one night I woke up with the answer: Of course, it is one
more planet that comes periodically between Mars and Jupiter; it is
sometimes nearer to Mars and sometimes nearer to Jupiter, but it
isn't Mars or Jupiter.
Once I realized that this was the answer, that there is one more
planet, everything else fell into place. The meaning of the
Mesopotamian Epic of Creation on which the first chapters of Genesis
are based and all details about the Anunnaki, who they were and who
their leaders were and how they traveled from their planet to Earth
and how they splashed down in the Persian Gulf and about their first
settlement, their leaders and so on and so on, everything became
clear! The Sumerians had immense knowledge.
They knew about Uranus
and Neptune and described them and they knew about Pluto. They were
proficient in mathematics and, in many respects, their knowledge
surpassed modem times. They said, "All that we know was told to us
by the Anunnaki." The first book's innovation, its impact, was the
realization that the ancient peoples, beginning with the Sumerians,
knew of and described and spoke of one more planet in our solar
system. It was not a discovery like that of Pluto in 1930 (of which
the Sumerians knew six thousand years ago).
Pluto was a very
interesting astronomical discovery; textbooks had to be revised. But
to the average person, the man on the street, it really made no
difference. Nibiru, on the other hand was a different story. If
Nibiru exists, (and this is the planet that astronomers nowadays
call planet X) then the Anunnaki exist.
So the existence of Nibiru is not a matter of just one more globe in
our solar system. This is different, because if Nibiru exists, and
the Anunnaki exist, then the Sumerian claim that they come back to
our vicinity every 3,600 years, at which times in the past they gave
us civilization, then we are not alone and there are more advanced
people than us in our solar system.
CL: What will happen next time
around?
ZS: Who knows how they will feel about us when they come back.
Will they decide to give us more knowledge again, and more
technical advancement and more civilization, or will they decide
that we are no good, as happened at the time of the Deluge, and
try to get rid of us?
So, the first book, laying the foundation and describing
Sumerian knowledge and concluding with the existence of one more
planet is really the key to understanding what it is all about.
What the tales of Genesis are, what the tales of creation are,
what our past was, and in a way what our future will be.
CL: And the second book in the series?
ZS:
The
Stairway to Heaven, looks at the tales of ancient times,
primarily from two new aspects. One was to bring the Egyptian
texts and mythologies into the picture and show how they fit
with the Sumerian [texts] and what they really meant. The second
was to look at the issue of man's search for immortality. And
this ties in with the Sinai, it ties in with the landing place,
with the spaceports in the Sinai Peninsula, the role of
Jerusalem and all that.
The third book,
The Wars of Gods and Men, continues the story
and shows what happened after Kingship, a new phase of
civilization, was given to mankind. Dealing with the conflict
that began with the rivalry between two half brothers, Enlil and
Enki. It relates how this conflict continued among their sons
and their grandchildren, leading to actual warfare which I call
the Pyramid Wars (there were two) in which, eventually, mankind
became involved. That is how mankind learned to make war. And
this deals with a moral or theological subject: Is man a warrior
by nature, or was he taught to become a warrior?
Book four,
The Lost Realms, is the tale of
the Americas. Not
just what they call pre-Columbian times but four, five thousand
years ago, which was before the Incas, the Mayans and the
Aztecs. Who really was in the Americas, how ancient are some of
the antiquities and how were such incredible megalithic
structures built? What for, How come, and By Whom? The Lost
Realms shows that it is part of the same story, that the same
Anunnaki brought mankind or part of mankind to the Americas.
Book five,
Genesis Revisited, a companion book, was really
written because in the fifteen years since the first book was
published, there have been many scientific advances, especially
in astronomy and all the discoveries of the Voyager Spacecraft,
in geology, biology, the discovery of DNA, the ability to create
babies in a test tube, linguistics, and [in unlocking the
secrets of] the origin of languages. Each such discovery
corroborated what the Sumerians had known and had written, and
therefore fully confirmed what I said in my first book. And each
time there was such a discovery I would literally jump out of my
seat and say, "My god, this is exactly what the Sumerians said
six thousand years ago!"
If you read the relevant page in The Twelfth Planet, you will
see that I quote a Sumerian text that says exactly how the Adam,
the first Homo sapiens, was created.* You will see that this is
a process that today we call the test tube baby process. I quote
a text that describes Uranus and Neptune as Voyager 2 saw them
in 1986 and 1989. I finally sat down and put together all this
scientific evidence, all these scientific discoveries to show
how they match and corroborate ancient knowledge. Hence the
subtitle of Genesis Revisited is Is Modern Science Catching Up
With Ancient Knowledge? So, this is a review of the five books.
CL: Astounding work. And it all started with the word
Nefilim?
ZS: Yes. That was the beginning.
CL: Might people read your books and say, well, he's doing a lot
of presuming. He's got fragments of tablets, and pieces of
cuneiform, and he's put many liberties in piecing together the
stories?
ZS: There are several different answers to that. The best answer
is what I brought out in Genesis Revisited. The knowledge that
we have acquired corroborates what the Sumerians knew six
thousand years ago. You wonder how is it possible, how could
they know? How, as another example, could their symbol of the
entwined serpents, that we still use today to denote medicine
and healing and biology, be 6,000 years ago, the symbol of Enki,
who engaged in genetic engineering to bring about the Adam? That
was a symbol of the DNA, the double helix of DNA.
How could they know without telescopes and spacecraft that
Neptune is a watery planet? They provided the answer by saying
"All that we know we have learned from the Anunnaki. So, you
say, "Ok. There were Anunnaki." Now, who were the Anunnaki and
where were they from? The Sumerians say, "They came here from
Nibiru." And you say, "What is Nibiru?" So they say, "It is one
more planet in our solar system." Now, if you say, "I'm really
impressed by the Sumerian knowledge, and, maybe they knew what
they were talking about regarding the Anunnaki. But I don't
think there is another planet with these advanced beings on it
near Earth."
If so, what is your explanation of who Anunnaki
were? Was there really a race of giants who existed on Earth
half a million years ago? Do you believe there was a
civilization on Earth half a million years ago that surpassed
our own and disappeared? When the focus shifts to explaining
those other people, you have no explanation. I then say, if you
have no explanation, why not accept the word of the Sumerians?
The second aspect of the answer is this. Nowhere in all these
books do I use a text, or do I refer to a tablet and say, I went
to this or that place in the Near East and as I was visiting
that place, I shifted the soil with my foot or with a stick and
look what I found! I found this tablet and look what it says! It
says that there was somebody called Enki who travelled from
Nibiru to Earth and splashed down in the Persian Gulf. No,
nowhere do I say, "Look what I found."
All the time I say,
"There is a tablet in the British Museum, its catalog number is
such and such; it was discovered in this and this place; the
text was first published by this and this scholar, here is what
it says." All the information, all the sources that I am giving,
are academically, scientifically, scholarly known and accepted
sources. At no time do I invent my own source.
CL: Just in
The Wars of God and Men, the sources you list take
up almost 16 pages!
ZS: The difference is, and this is the key difference, that when
there is a text, for example, that describes how Enki came to
Earth and splashed down, the scholars, the text books, call this
the "Myth of Enki and the Earth." Another text that deals with
Enlil is called the "Myth of Enlil" and whatever the subject is.
All these texts are called by scholars "mythology." I say: What
if this is not a myth, what if these texts tell us what really
took place?
CL: Right.
ZS: From that I created the scenario, a plausible, a logical
scenario that explains so many of the enigmas and the puzzles
and the mysteries which otherwise remain enigmas, and mysteries
and puzzles. Like, who built the pyramids, what for, etc.
CL: What more can you tell us about the Anunnaki, and do we have
free-will or is it all determined by these same Anunnaki?
ZS: I'm asked, "Do they look like us?" and I say, no, we look
like them. They made us through genetic engineering. They jumped
the gun on evolution , and made us to look like them physically,
and to be like them emotionally.
That is what the Bible says:
"
Let us make the Adam in our likeness and after our image."
Physically, outwardly and inwardly. So much of what they are, we
are.
There is a tremendous difference in the lifespan, which is the
cause of the notions of their immortality. Because one year to
them is one orbit of theirs around the sun. So, one of their
years equals three-thousand-six-hundred of ours. This is the key
difference between us and them.
Then there is the difference in their technological advancement
which enables them not only to travel in space, and to have
traveled half a million years ago, but also to revive the dead
and do other things which in biblical times were considered
miracles.
I feel that just as they came to earth and created us through
genetic engineering, and mixed their genes with those of
Ape-woman, that one day we will go out in space and land on
another planet somewhere and do the same thing. In this sense, I
believe things are ordained in a grand pattern.
But can events within this grand pattern be determined by
individuals? I think so. Take the story of the Deluge and the
destruction of mankind and the saving of the seed of mankind,
through Noah and his ark. Enlil decided to use the opportunity
of the avalanche of water to destroy mankind, while Enki told
Noah, (the Sumerian Ziusudra) about what was coming.
Enki taught
Noah how to build an ark and cover and seal it so it wouldn't be
swamped, and Noah was able to take himself and his family and
others, according to the Sumerians, into the ark and save the
seed of mankind. Here you have a conflict between two leaders of
the Anunnaki. One felt one way and one felt another way. So the
question of free choice, of what is right, what is wrong, what
should be done, what should not be done, is there all along.
CL: What about the theory that we are the gods of before? That
we created mankind and now are at the effect end?
ZS: All I can tell you is that I see my task, or maybe my
mission, to bring to the knowledge of people today what the
ancient people knew and believed in. To do so by being able to
go to their sources and their writings and their depictions, and
treating that material not as a myth but as a true story. Now,
my writings have become a basis of quite a substantial
literature. There are two dozen or more books that are based on
my books. These are in theology, astrology, and so on and so
forth, and I am sure there are many more about which I don't
know. They refer to my writings or are based on them. I provide
the facts as I see them, and everyone is free to interpret them
as they wish.
CL: That's the scientific way of looking at it, which makes your
work even more credible, That means you're not making guesses,
you're going by the actual evidence that exists.
ZS: Yes. I am pleased that many have used this material as
evidence, to build on it, to expound on it in various
directions. Without saying whether I agree or disagree with the
other theories and developments, I am very happy that my books
have become text books about ancient times.
CL: You said when
Pluto was discovered, in 1930, text books were
rewritten to accommodate that fact. Has anyone or any textbook
publisher done the same with this information?
ZS: It takes time, but it is beginning to filter through.
CL: When is this thirty-six hundred year cycle due again?
ZS: Well, you have to reach your own conclusions.
CL: If every time they came back they taught us something new,
and advanced our civilization, do you have a theory what their
next step for us might be?
ZS: No. As I said, one time they didn't give us any
civilization, they tried to destroy us. So, I don't know what
the odds are.
CL: Is there a lesson here for us? If this is our history, what
are we supposed to have learned to avert another flood when the
Anunnaki come back? Or is that too unpredictable to guess?
ZS: To some extent it is unpredictable because I don't
know who their leader is now. Whether he is from the Enlil clan
or from the Enki clan. If I knew that, I could answer you more
easily. That's why I still have books to write to reach the
answer. It is a big question, and the answer is not that simple.
